shinobi602
Member
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Rockstar: "Hot Coffee" scandal was an attack on videogames
- Thread starter shinobi602
- Start date
DidntKnowJack
Member
It was headed up by Jack Thompson. Of course it was an attack on videogames.
But I don't know why Houser is just saying this now.
But I don't know why Houser is just saying this now.
Cramoss
Member
Preparing for when they find the GTA V stuff.
yep
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I've been hearing:
... since 2006.
Edit: Not from Jack Thompson or Fox or any people like that though, obviously. If that was the point?
Buckethead
Banned
They were getting ass-fucked in legal fees by every litigious sycophant in the world.
I think he was smart enough not to fan the flames.
I can't find any reason to suggest he's wrong. It was a giant witch hunt against all of gaming when the story broke back then due to adults still believing that gaming was nothing but a kid's hobby. The sad thing is things have only slightly improved almost 8 years later.
Also that guardian speculation is BS. The Housers have always been relatively media shy and their games don't go through the normal PR cycle most AAA games do.
Also that guardian speculation is BS. The Housers have always been relatively media shy and their games don't go through the normal PR cycle most AAA games do.
Father_Brain
Banned
Manhunt 2's original AO rating probably resulted in large part from external pressure on the ESRB as well. I think it was IGN's preview describing Wiimote castrations that may have done that version in.
Puppet Shadow
Member
Claiming PatrickW planted an x-rated mini game with dialog and animation using a 41 kb file left me with less respect for Rockstar than the actual content they did leave in. Have the balls to make it an M rated game instead of bitching that 'games' aren't a mature medium.
Probably because it isn't on-screen like Hot Coffee, but I would say GoW's sex minigames are still more 'graphic' than this
Probably near single-handedly led to most developers writing tools to scrub unused/unreferenced content out of games before pressing them to disc. Before HC, you could find stuff like missing remnants of dungeons in Wind Waker, unused enemies in Halo 2, etc.
Now you'll be lucky to even find an alternate color scheme for an NPC still on the disc.
Now you'll be lucky to even find an alternate color scheme for an NPC still on the disc.
billy beane
Banned
I'll be in my bunk.Probably because it isn't on-screen like Hot Coffee, but I would say GoW's sex minigames are still more 'graphic' than this
The mass media associate video games with children. Their gut instinct is that sex is being sold to their children. They don't care that the game is an 18, or that the scene's were inaccessible. I don't know why. Maybe they just want to hate a medium that they don't understand. It was pretty pathetic, anyway.
Puppet Shadow
Member
lol, I just remembered...
I was playing this one night with my wife watching, still trying to figure out how to control the 'excitement' meter when I inevitably failed, and got the 'Not pleasing a woman is a crime' line. My wife walks out of the room and says 'Told ya...
I was playing this one night with my wife watching, still trying to figure out how to control the 'excitement' meter when I inevitably failed, and got the 'Not pleasing a woman is a crime' line. My wife walks out of the room and says 'Told ya...
chertipros
Member
yep
Smiles and Cries
Member
Xenoblade has a huge unused area on disc it may still happen
MisterHero
Super Member
He's ultimately right, but was there a major reason they couldn't remove it entirely? Explicit content in a book or a movie isn't cheaply hidden. They either edit it out or stand by it.
Edit: Now I remember. Evading the ESRB is a no-no.
Edit: Now I remember. Evading the ESRB is a no-no.
Which I find hilarious in hindsight considering coincidentally a year later the 360 released and effectively ended the era of cheat devices.
I always saw it as an attack on the medium and not the game itself because you had to mod the game to access the 'scandalous' content in the first place. There was no way for a consumer to pick the game off the shelf and discover this without actively looking for it and enabling it.
Comparisons to it being something in a book are flawed from that standpoint, unless you're talking about a sex scene that you could only read by running the book through a decryption routine.
Comparisons to it being something in a book are flawed from that standpoint, unless you're talking about a sex scene that you could only read by running the book through a decryption routine.
Criticism of video games never seems to go away. There is always going to be a crowd who will never play and they'll continue to dump on those who do. A kid plays a game and he's labelled as a lazy time waster, but these people will waste hours each night watching that reality TV crap.
Add a little controversy to a game and it's extra ammo for stupid criticism. Definitely unfair.
Add a little controversy to a game and it's extra ammo for stupid criticism. Definitely unfair.
WrenchNinja
Member
The weird thing about the whole scandal as a non-American looking from the outside was the hysteria sounding something as completely natural as sex. I can understand protests against senseless violence, hate speech, misogyny, nazism, and so on, but sex? It just boggled the minds of me and everyone in Scandinavia.
Sweet justice, not because he's a slimy lawyer, but because he's batshit crazy.
Male on male rape confirmed.
It actually probably still happens a lot more than people give credit for it, as it's very rare that stuff's actually of the rating changing level. It just so happened that the one time it occured was also when people were probably the most sensitive about video games, and was very easy to bring back given Pro Action Replays could pull it out.
I think he's half right, but I do believe the other half is the fact it was hidden away. If it were right out there in the open from the start I imagine that you'd have some furor, and everyone being told for the most part to just deal with it. I wonder if the ESRB DID consider it AO worthy... though possibly more plausible is the fact it probably wasn't all that fun to begin with.
MisterHero
Super Member
It wasn't the content itself. It was a feeble attempt by Rockstar to avoid the AO rating.
I don't know if videogames can just ditch ESRB. In the last decade or so, Marvel and DC ditched the Comics Code Authority, but came up with their own regulation systems. The ESRB was created so that the game industry could regulate their own content, rather than the government stepping in.
They're not about censorship; just making sure the games are only available to the right age groups.
True. Let's not pretend Rockstar did themselves any favors in their handling of the brouhaha.
sixteen-bit
Member
gross
Think you have to hack/mod your game to get it. It's not in the normal game but locked away on the disc I believe.
Nowadays it would be on disc DLC
MisterHero
Super Member
IIRC it wasn't locked but hidden behind some geometry. The cheat was needed to walk through it.Think you have to hack/mod your game to get it. It's not in the normal game but locked away on the disc I believe.
Nowadays it would be on disc DLC
Lol
Rhazer Fusion
Member
I think he is right. Yeah, unfortunately, games are still viewed as being only for kids and I think that is the primary reason why games are always targeted by the media. Imo, quite a bit of the popular games that come out now are more geared towards adults as opposed to kids such as Max Payne 3, GTA4, Dead Island, COD: BO2, God of War, Witcher 2, etc. Music has more influence on people than games any day of the week. How many people recite the lyrics to a rap song or try to emulate popular pop singers, rappers, rock bands, etc these days trying to act and dress like them?
It'd probably take a long time and growing apathy for rating systems to go away, and I half expect that requires a few generations to live and die (or for research to conclude it's not worth the trouble and convincing the right people of it). Still, Marvel and DC did the right thing in stepping away from the CCA given how abominable it was compared to NORMAL rating systems. I'd hate to see how games would've gone with that sort of control slapped on them for too long, even if they shed it they'd be crippled in many ways (I don't think anything but superhero comics and, uhh, maybe Archie has been particularly successful when it comes to traditional comics, right?)
Think you have to hack/mod your game to get it. It's not in the normal game but locked away on the disc I believe.
Nowadays it would be on disc DLC
True. Except for that last part, I mean. It being dummied out, locked away content is what makes it such a blatant attack on the medium instead of a legitimate moral crusade. That and the sheer absurd nature of the crusade--it's a rated M game. The people being protected from it should have been unable to procure it at all and the people who could legally procure it would have had no legal problems with the content. Any moral qualms from that point would be solved by eBay or a return policy.
The ratings aren't legally binding, otherwise this controversy probably wouldn't have happened (or would've been far worse), plus the rating is for 17+ anyway, not 18+. Though, I think you might technically be mostly correct given that it requires REAL modding to get actual nudity in, and it seems to only be illegal to sell porn to minors, not for them to get it. And I have to wonder how far you'd really have to go anyway, nevermind it probably varies from place to place rather than being rules set on a federal level.
polyh3dron
Banned
Good thing Jack Thompson is disbarred and no one will listen to that lunatic anymore.